Gloucester County NJ Website Design: Evaluation of the Best and Worst

For almost a year now, DotCom Global Media has been publishing weekly reports on Gloucester County NJ website design, based on comprehensive evaluations intended to uncover the best and worst local websites in the business world. Over 350 business websites were selected for this NJ Website Design study, which included a full analysis and report of each website. Grades were assigned in the areas of design, features, content, and authority.

This article provides an in-depth analysis of the websites for businesses, organizations, and associations located in Gloucester County NJ. This article is intended to be a resource for business owners and website design companies looking to create a new website, or redesign a current Gloucester County NJ website design.

In this article we have included the following information:

1. Brief Overview of the County from a business perspective, and the need for an excellent Gloucester County NJ website design.
2. Best Website Design examples in Gloucester County New Jersey
3. High Potential Examples of Gloucester  NJ Website Design that would do very well with some strategic design/development changes
4. Worst Website Design examples in Gloucester  County New Jersey
5. Simple Directory of Web Designers in Gloucester County New Jersey, or web design companies known for their Gloucester NJ website design work.

Local Towns Evaluated for Gloucester County NJ Website Design:

This study is ongoing, and new towns are evaluated by DotCom Global Media each week. There are twenty-five different towns in Gloucester County NJ and to date, we have combed through the business websites in two of these towns. Here are the towns that were evaluated for Gloucester County NJ Website Design, so far.

Deptford NJ

Glassboro NJ

Pitman NJ

Williamstown NJ

Opportunity/Need for Gloucester County NJ Website Design

Analyzing the current business environment and growth opportunities in Gloucester County New Jersey

Gloucester County has a population of nearly $292,000 people spread out across 26 towns. Farming and fruit and vegetable production is booming in this part of the Garden State. Cattle, hogs, and other livestock are raised on many Gloucester farms. There are year-round canneries and quick freezing establishments along with local markets. Local restaurants source their ingredients in Gloucester County, stocking their commercial kitchens with locally grown produce and locally sourced meats.

This is a beautiful place to own a home and raise a family. While the median gross household income in New Jersey is $72k, Gloucester County comes in higher at $77.5, which means that Gloucester residents earn more money than average. The most common jobs in Gloucester County NJ are upper management, elementary and middle school teachers, secretaries and administrative assistants, and retail salespeople. Despite the heavily rural parts of Gloucester, there are famous shopping districts and landmark destinations there as well, especially in Deptford and Glassboro. Pitman is a very cute little town with a bustling Main Street hosting shops and a theatre. Parks and playgrounds speckle the county and are well maintained by the local recreation departments. Gloucester County NJ has a wonderful community of residents and business owners and they are very supportive of each other.

Read through this article carefully if your business is located in Gloucester County NJ, or if you are planning to establish a company there. Your online presence is a huge piece of your business image and identity- Even if you’re NOT paying attention to it, your website says something about your business, good or bad.

Best Examples of Gloucester County NJ Website Design

In addition to the most obvious features, there are many little things that make a website design great and effective. Top marks go to beautiful websites that have useful information AND are doing the types of things that make them attractive to Google, while also providing a positive user experience. Through our search, we came across  some good and bad local examples of Gloucester County New Jersey websites. Here’s what we found:

1. Bright Beginnings Academy, Sewell NJ – http://bbanj.net

Numerical Score: 84/100 

Design Grade……… B

Features Grade……. C

Content Grade…….. C

Authority Grade…… F

This website design is bright and cheery, and the layout is inviting. As a visitor, you want to scroll down and see more. It’s clear that this website is new because the old one is under an old domain, and the trust score for the old one is much higher. It took some searching before we found the new website since it hasn’t built up a great authority as of yet. Clearly, there were many upgrades made to this new website including a blog and integrated Google reviews instead of just posting testimonials next to stock photos. The new site looks great and matches the business very well. The messaging is clear. There is a good balance of text and imagery on each page. The calls to action are compelling and well thought out. The virtual tour of the facility is a very cool feature. There was definitely a good investment made for this website upgrade, and they did a great job with it. One concern is the optimization of the website. It’s not immediately clear if they are targeted specific keywords or implementing a content marketing strategy. Those steps would help to improve the authority and ranking for this website, which ultimately brings traffic and raises the conversion rate. Another thing that should be mentioned is the absence of tuition information. After digging, it’s still not clear what the cost is for these services. It also doesn’t mention what a visitor must do to access the tuition information. That is a frustrating thing on the side of the user experience. Ending on a positive note, the original photos on this website are awesome! Very well done.

2. Rowan University, Glassboro NJ – http://www.rowan.edu/home/

Numerical Score: 82/100 

Design Grade………. C

Features Grade……. C

Content Grade…….. B

Authority Grade…… F

Starting with the homepage, it’s easy to see that this website is professional and well organized. There are clearly defined sections on the homepage. There is a very extensive navigation bar, which probably should be separated into two separate menus. Content is the category that this website scored the highest for because there are hundreds of pages full of written copy. There is no shortage of information here although it’s not the easiest site to navigate since it’s doesn’t pull you in any particular direction. Visually speaking, this website ranks poorly. The photos used as “hero images” at the top are mediocre, at best. There is nothing special about the layout of the site, but it is mobile friendly, which is crucial. The design is actually an outdated style, which is evident by all of the wasted space in the margins. One of the pretty cool features on the Rowan University website is the virtual tour option, but it was disappointing to learn that you can’t see inside any of the buildings. Just touring around the outside isn’t much better than what you’d find on Google Maps. There are social media feeds on the homepage and a list of upcoming events. Throughout the site, there are some attempts made to be informal and cheeky, such as spelling “RU Ready?” on the Admissions & Aid page. The problem is that it’s not immediately clear that RU is an acronym for the college, and it could through some people off. At first look, it seemed like a typo or a shortened phrase that would be more suitable as a text message. Other parts of the site are overly wordy and ambiguous. Perhaps there were several contributors helping to compose the written content for this site, but it turned out to lack cohesion. Still, it’s by far one of the best professional websites in Gloucester County NJ, but that is largely due to the volume of written content that we found here.

3. Ambassador Christian Academy, Glassboro NJ – http://ambassadorchristianacademy.com

Numerical Score: 70/100 

Design Grade………. C

Features Grade……. C

Content Grade…….. C

Authority Grade…… F

The homepage is lackluster and frankly, the worst one of all “Best” websites we’ve evaluated for this study. For some reason, it looks as though the homepage was the lowest priority because most of the other pages are better in terms of visuals, content, and features. This is a huge mistake because the homepage plays a huge role in determining whether visitors leave the site or stick around to find more information. The website doesn’t seem to be updated often. There are deadlines from last year sprinkled around. The photos of the teachers and staff are low resolution, and they are not very warm and welcoming. Action shots of the teachers in their classrooms or posing with their students would have been a better approach. There is no Contact Page, oddly, but the info is at the bottom of the site. On the positive side, the layout of the website in general is good. The navigation bar is well put together and everything is nested under the proper menu options. The Athletics page is empty, but the Academics section gives some information on each of the grades. A professional photographer would be a wise investment for the purposes of this website, because it seems like only the stock images are high quality. There seems to be a video, but the place where it belongs is empty- uh oh! The resources on the website really help to save the score. There are packets and forms for everything, for every grade. There are printable PDFs for everything- even a traffic flow map for the parking lot. It would be nice to see what the actual building and classrooms look like. Perhaps someone will update this website soon and get all of the broken links fixed. Ultimately, this site isn’t great but it eked out a high enough score to land on the best Gloucester County NJ website design examples list. Following our advice, a web master with basic knowledge could get this website to a B-level. With high quality imagery and some tweaks to the content, plus a marketing plan for authority and trust, this website could climb up to an A grade. There is definitely great potential.

By Location: Best/Worst NJ Website Design

High Potential Examples of Gloucester County NJ Website Design

There are a lot of websites that kind of fall in the middle. They’re not good, but they could be worse. Most of these “high potential” website design examples are placed in this category because they scored low on our evaluation, but the businesses themselves are so great that we see a huge opportunity for success. Here are the local websites we found that don’t stand on their own yet, but could be absolutely killer if they made the right moves.

4. Brida Stone Inc, Glassboro NJ – http://bridastone.com

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade C

• Homepage is clean and eye-catching. The call to action is clear and the visuals are great – especially the hero image.
• It’s a modern template and it’s fully responsive. It feels like it’s on the empty side but aesthetically we can appreciate the minimalism because it does not look incomplete, from the homepage.
• The products page is educational but it’s not overwhelming. Easy to navigate and learn about the various types of stones and hardscaping materials.
• After digging in, it’s clear that this website isn’t developed enough. Unfortunately, there isn’t nearly enough written content to appease search engines. This website has very low authority and doesn’t rank well.
• The Team Photos are not cohesive and not professional. There should be a group shot of this team, and a nice photo of the interior of the store. The lack of great photos of people on this website really counts against the overall website design grade.

5. Heritage Glass Museum, Glassboro NJ – https://www.heritageglassmuseum.com

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade C

• The great photos are used nicely to balance out the text and not crowd up the webpages. The dimensions of the photos are not the best choice, though. It would be more appealing to see landscape oriented photos stretched fully across the screen.
• The font is annoying to read. Working through paragraphs of text in All CAPS is very tough on the eyes.
• Some of the webpages are dead ends because visitors are not able to navigate back to the main area of the website.
• Related links are always a good thing if you’re pointing to relevant, high quality websites. In this case, the glass related links page is a smart addition.

6. Pitman Animal Hospital, Pitman NJ – http://pitmananimalhospital.com

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade C

• This website looks like a professional website designer created it- but long ago. It definitely feels outdated. The style of the layout alone makes it look like an older website, and it’s not mobile friendly which proves it. Responsive websites are a requirement today, for many reasons.
• It is so good to see webpages built out to explain all of the services in detail. SO many websites used bullet pointed lists and never provide explanations of all it entails. This site goes the extra mile.
• There are lots of helpful resources for pet owners.
• Social proof is important, especially in the medical field. There is one testimonial on the homepage, which is a good start but there should be a more extensive section, including case studies and reviews.

7. Signature Automotive Repair, Sewell NJ – http://www.signatureautomotiverepair.com

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade D

• The photos on this website are not high quality, not eye catching, and not even showing modern vehicles. This business really needs a better media library.
• The calls to action are clear, at least. There are links and web forms pointing people in the right direction.
• Services are list bullet point-style, but there isn’t much information on what the services entail, or what the estimated costs might be.
• This is one website that has huge potential, but it needs work, both on the design and SEO.

8. DHY Motorsports, Deptford NJ – https://dhy.com

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade D

• This website is nothing special, and the fonts and format causes it to look very homemade. It’s not a mobile friendly website and the template is extremely basic.
• It doesn’t look like a modern business website. The whole thing needs to be revamped and brought up to date.
• As a major save, this website is mobile friendly which was a pleasant surprise to see.
• This is one website that has huge potential, but it needs work, both on the design and SEO.

9. Endeavor Sports Performance, Pitman NJ – https://endeavorfit.sportssl.com

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade D

• The design of this website screams 1995 testosterone-heavy man cave. It doesn’t look like a modern business website. The entire website needs to be revamped and brought up to date.
• Despite “performance” being in the name, the site does not perform well at all. It doesn’t load properly on mobile devices, it doesn’t show up in search engines for any key terms, and the user experience score is low.
• One thing this website does have going for it is the framework. It hits on the key elements like social media integration, testimonials for social proof, and detailed explanations of the services.
• There is plenty of potential with the existing content, but the messaging, design, and photos need to be completely revamped to bring this site up to speed.

10. Terra Nova Restaurant, Sewell NJ – http://www.terranovawineanddine.com

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade C

• The website, though it doesn’t look like a customized design, does a pretty good job for this business. It’s clean and modern and is easy to navigate.
• Images on this website are higher quality than most other restaurants we’ve seen in the area. There are some issues with the photo galleries and the way those images are displayed, but the photos on the homepage are very good.
• The bounce rate is probably high, since the two main calls to action direct you off-site to see a tour of the restaurant and make reservations online. Once a visitor leaves your website, it takes a lot to bring them back, so it’s never a good idea to push them to another website too soon.
• The website is fully responsible and works well on mobile devices, with the exception of the menus. Since the menus were not created digitally, they do not scale up and down. It’s nice to have a printer-friendly menu on a website but that shouldn’t be the primary menu page. Always have a digital one. Besides, it’s much easier to update when you change the prices and options.

11. Bonesaw Craft Brewery, Glassboro NJ – info@sawbonesbrewing.com

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade D

• Obviously, this website is brand new and still under development since the company hasn’t opened yet. This website made it onto the list of high potential sites because they’re on the right track and we’re giving them the benefit of the doubt. There are some minor mistakes and a lot of stuff to fill in but if the website designer knows what he or she is doing, this website will be rockin’ by next year.
• It’s a modern and eye-catching design. One major concern is why the site isn’t mobile friendly. That’s standard for new websites and most templates are even responsive.
• Oddly, there isn’t a contact page but there’s a page named “Updates” that has the contact info and web form for sending an email.
• The icons are clean and cool and the photos and sketches are a nice touch as temporary placeholders. I hope they get a solid content marketing plan going before they launch, to drive traffic to the site and boost up their trust score during the first year.

12. Brookside Recreation and Swim Club, Glassboro NJ – http://brooksidedolphins.com/index.htm

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade D

• This website design is nothing special, and the fonts and format causes it to look very homemade. It’s not a mobile friendly website and the template is extremely basic.
• Navigation bar is clean and content is well organized. The Teams section is the most interesting part of the website, showing that there is a dive team, a swim team, and a tennis team at this facility. Unfortunately, the photos on each of these pages are very small and there is nothing especially compelling or any calls to action. It’s a good start but this section unfortunately falls flat.
• Though the footer says this year, it’s clear that no one is keeping this business website updated. The most recent forms uploaded to this website were dated in 2015.
• A professional photo shoot would do a world of good for this business. Some of the photos are decent, but many of them bring down the integrity of the website like the amateurish photo of a pair of flip-flops. Some of the images look like they were taken with a camera phone.

13. McCann-Healey Funeral Home, Gloucester City NJ – http://www.mccannhealey.com

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade D

• Homepage is lacking! It’s cluttered with a long list of obituaries, the photos fail to make a human connection, and it doesn’t pull you in.
• The resources are the most helpful part of the website. It’s also great to see educational content for pre-planning and the veterans’ information.
• The merchandise page is a huge failure. It’s obviously a patchwork job, hosted on another platform and poorly embedded to this site. It’s ugly, it doesn’t match the rest of the site, and it feels completely out of place.
• The website has huge potential but it needs a design and content overhaul. SEO is totally missing here, so the ranking is nonexistent. All traffic must be direct traffic, based on what we are finding. It needs work.

14. Savoie Organic Farm, Williamstown NJ –http://www.savoieorganicfarm.com

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade D

• Branding for this website is sadly missing the mark. The black background and dark brown wallpaper does not give a fresh and organic feeling to this organic farm website.
• There is a ton of great information on this website, but it’s very hard to read. The color and size of the text, and the way it’s placed, is not user friendly.
• The photos are bright and inviting but most of them are just featuring vegetables or farmland. It’s important to show people participating to make a human connection.
• The calls to action need work, especially related to the CSA program. Next steps are very vague, and the information on the application process and procedures are not clear. This website needs a complete overhaul in design, but most written content can be tweaked, optimized, and added onto.

15. Total Turf Experience, Pitman NJ – http://totalturf.net

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade F

• The homepage is such a major fail. It’s like looking at 15 billboards slapped together. It’s loud, overwhelming, confusing, and the visitor doesn’t know what to look at first.
• Beyond the homepage, it looks like all of the other pages are set up in the same way. It’s like a ton of clickable ads are thrown into a list. You can click them for more information.
• We finally see photos of customers and the facility after digging around in the navigation bar; but the photos are very poor quality.
• It’s clear that media is the focus on this website instead of written content. There is a huge opportunity here to beef up the SEO, use content marketing, and drive traffic. Hopefully, they’ll keep that in mind when they revamp the site.

16. Italian Affair, Glassboro NJ – http://www.italianaffairglassboro.com

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade F

• This website does not look like a professional created it. There are some standard things completely missing, such as a footer and social media integration.
• The homepage is the most important place to make a great impression but this one falls flat.
• Judging from the photo galleries, this restaurant interior looks really nice! But, where are the people? Where is the food? All of the photos are showing the furniture and décor, but this is a restaurant website- not an interior designer’s portfolio.
• Menus should be digital- not a scanned image of the paper menu! It’s too hard to view on various screens, and it’s impossible to edit once it’s published online. That’s not a smart approach.

17. Let’s Dance Studio, Glassboro NJ – http://letsdancestudio.net

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade F

• The homepage is really awful – It doesn’t establish anything about the business in writing. There is only the contact info and a long page full of photos of school-aged dance groups.
• The most confusing part of this website is on the homepage, where it says to register for classes on a different website. It’s not even a link, but it’s clearly directing visitors to sign up on another dance studio website.
• While the navigation menu is easy to understand, it’s too busy. Ideally, there should be 3-5 items in the menu. If there are more pages or categories than that, a secondary menu should be used.
• The website is very light on written content and nothing is keyword optimized for search engines. One of the pages is completely blank. It’s no wonder the authority and trust score for this website is so low. This website is definitely underperforming.

Worst Examples of Gloucester County NJ Website Design

Choosing the worst websites in a town like this is painful. As a web designer in the Gloucester area, I’ve seen these types of mistakes over and over that are wreaking havoc on these businesses and killing their SERP ranking. Some of these websites are so terrible that I’m assuming they came free and ready-made with a domain purchase. The mistakes are numerous and easy to avoid if you’re a web designer who know’s what you’re doing.

18. World Pack Cold Storage, Gloucester City NJ – http://wpcoldstorage.com/contact-us.cfm

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade F

• This website design is outdated and generic. It’s somewhat responsive to smaller screen sizes but the design does not look like a modern website. There is a ton of wasted space on the sides and at the bottom, and everything is crammed into a tiny window.
• Grammatical errors abound. The written content is a mess, and it’s not compelling or educational. The messaging is not strong, as far as what type of client they’re looking to serve and how they can help.
• Most photos are not bad in terms of quality, but the display is awful. They are very small and thrown into a slideshow or randomly placed here or there.
• The web pages are so incredibly empty. There is only enough content to fill up one or two decent pages, but instead this site has a number of pages with very little information on each. It feels like a waste of time to navigate through.

19. Piramal Glass – http://piramalglass.com/index.html

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade F

• This is another outdated website that was built using a generic template. There’s tons of wasted space, it’s cramming all content into a small window, and it’s not inviting or mobile friendly. This website earned a bad grade in the area of website design.
• Imagery is also lacking in a really bad way. If this company specializes in glass, there should be eye-catching photos to show what they can create. The only photos are very poor quality, very ambiguous pieces of what looks like glowing material and a group of very basic glass bottles.
• Written content is mediocre, and not well balanced. Some pages are completely empty, except for a sentence. Others are overwhelmed with paragraphs of tiny text. By far the most legible content is the contact information, which is surprisingly extensive.
• There are a ton of resources listed under the Investor/News tab in the nav bar, but some of the links are broken and others are poorly executed. A list of links with no explanation of what it is or how to use the information is pointless.

20. Wing Hing Restaurant, Gloucester City NJ – http://www.winghinggloucester.com/aboutus.aspx

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade F

• It’s clear that this website is not being used as a marketing tool. It’s not a good design and it redirects its traffic to other websites.
• There isn’t any effort being made here. No calls to action and nothing compelling.
• It has a very low trust score so it’s not showing up in search engines. Maybe it’s a new website. The Facebook page for this business points to another domain- a broken one that used flash.
• It’s not a mobile friendly. It’s never going to ever rank for any search terms unless they fix these major issues.

21. Max’s Seafood Café, Gloucester City NJ – http://www.maxsseafoodcafe.com

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade F

• There are scarcely any visuals here at all. No photos of the food, the atmosphere. Nothing.
• The menus are terrible. They’re digital, but completely thrown up there on the page like a copy/paste with no formatting or columns or visual assets whatsoever.
• There is even a page in the menu that comes up blank.
• Nobody is managing this website. The live music details are showing dates from nearly ten months ago. This website is completely useless to a potential customer.

22. Campbell’s Express, Pitman NJ – http://campbellsexpress.com

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade F

• Homepage is lacking! It’s cluttered, the images are tiny and boring, and it doesn’t pull you in. There is even a line running through some of the text due to poor placement and messed up border dimensions.
• This is an awful layout and it wastes tons of valuable space. I hope they didn’t pay for this template. It’s not even responsive which means that search engines are marking it poorly.
• Everything is super outdated from the archaic web forms to the style elements.

23. Sweet Lula’s, Pitman NJ – http://sweetlulas.com/sweetlulas.com/Come_on_in.html

Gloucester County NJ Website Design Grade F

• This is the worst business website that we found in Gloucester County NJ. It’s horrible, from the design, content, authority, and features.
• The user experience is awful. There are no next steps, no calls to action, and nothing compelling on this site to lead a visitor to click or learn more.
• Visually, this website is so bad. I don’t know why anyone would make a huge collage of tiny, terrible photos of food and slap it right onto the homepage. The photos page is no better. Everything looks terrible. They need a professional photo shoot stat, and to ditch all of these.
• The menus are all different from each other. There are serious branding issues here.
• Most annoying is the typo in the navigation bar. It looks like this website was thrown together with no care, in no time at all.

Directory of local Web Designers serving Gloucester County NJ

Below is a profile of each website designer in Gloucester County New Jersey (physical address is listed as Gloucester County) or web company who is known for their Gloucester County NJ website design work.

While there is no shortage of business activity in Gloucester County NJ, companies actively operating in this town are lacking in the area of effective web presence. This is a missed opportunity both for businesses and for potential customers. Most Gloucester County NJ websites are poorly designed, and worse- they’re virtually impossible to find through online search.

To up your chances for success, get your Gloucester County NJ website design set up the right way on the right platform, with an approach that draws targeted traffic. A beautiful website that’s supported with smart tools and a digital marketing strategy will drastically help your local NJ-based business to thrive.

By Location: Best/Worst NJ Website Design